Bang!
Bai Yumo's fist was packed with all the power he'd recuperated during the short time before he attacked Damien.
The just recently repaired arena floor cracked into pieces again, and the winds whipped fiercely under the fist's pressure.
However, this was no trouble for Damien. He shifted his body to the left and snapped his arm out, grabbing the Saint King's wrist mid-swing and using his own momentum against him.
BANG!
Bai Yumo's body flipped under Damien's influence and slammed against the ground below. Damien followed with another punch straight to the Nox genius's stomach.
Bai Yumo gritted his teeth in frustration at the immediate loss, but he didn't let it distract him from the battle.
Damien was different from Su Ren. If the Saint Emperor liked him, he wasn't someone who could be crippled and thrown away with just a few tricks.
If so, Bai Yumo needed to fight like he hadn't fought in a very long time.
He rolled on the ground, uncaring for his appearance as he dodged Damien's terrifying fist and leapt back to his feet.
Boom!
The ground cracked as the shockwave of Damien's fist pushed him back a few steps.
His fan sliced through the air and cut the shockwave away. In the next moment, he continued his retreat, making considerable distance between him and Damien.
'I must create a strategy.'
He observed the enemy's movements and noticed how skilled he was in physical aspects. His motions weren't rigid in the slightest, but every heavy strike that seemed wasteful was actually controlled with extreme precision.
Usually, physical masters were lacking in law comprehension, but Bai Yumo wasn't stupid enough to believe this as absolute fact.
He flared his mana and pointed his fan out, creating several inky black swords that cut through the air back towards Damien.
"Hmph."
Damien snorted as he stepped forward. He disappeared just as the swords reached his position, causing Bai Yumo's eyes to widen.
"Yo!"
Damien's voice came from behind, accompanied by a firm grip on the back of Bai Yumo's head.
"Didn't expect me, did you?"
"Hmph, this is not enough to defeat me!"
The Saint King snarled as his eyes narrowed into pinholes.
To Damien's surprise, the back of his opponent's head began to melt, becoming a viscous fluid that stuck to his hand and drilled into his palm.
"Oh? This must be what you gave Su Ren, right?"
Damien allowed a bit of that mana to enter his skin before jumping away and brandishing Mirage.
'Void Sword Art First Form: Bladeless'
RIIPP!
Space tore in two as an atrocious gash spread through its layers.
Bai Yumo waves his fan and created more manifestations with his mana, sending them towards the coming attack confidently.
Bang!
The two clashed in the air powerfully, but it meant nothing.
Damien and Bai Yumo were already gone, continuing their combat without a single break.
"Damien Void, you are better than that swordsman," Bai Yumo commented, continuously dodging and using his fan to counterattack whenever he got the chance.
"If he heard you calling him a swordsman I bet he'd come down here and beat you until you can't recognize yourself anymore."
Damien responded spitefully, drawing Hel and firing a thickly compressed black bullet from point-blank range.
'Extermination.'
It was the first big attack of the battle. The sweeping black light of extermination pulsed through the arena and filled it with deathly energy. When it came in contact with Bai Yumo, he immediately felt the burning sensation on his skin.
Hisss!
He looked down incredulously to find his arm corroded, his ashen grey skin almost entirely black already.
"You…" he muttered as his fury built.
"You scum!"
Bai Yumo's eyes turned red in rage.
His mana exploded outward powerfully. Black waves spread through the arena once more, destroying all extermination fluctuations present.
"Die!"
Bai Yumo slammed his hand forward, and in response, a massive shadowy figure formed behind his back.
It was a manifestation of his laws. Its eyes lit up like bloody moons, shedding their light all across the arena so Damien had no means of dodging.
"Khh…!"
Damien couldn't avoid getting hit, and he couldn't ignore the pain either.
Now that he was fighting the man, he understood why Su Ren had so much trouble with him.
At their core, they both used the same type of mana.
Damien felt his spirit getting attacked by a concept he could best term "torment." Every strike was filled with the pain of a thousand cuts, yet the actual damage they did was negligible.
It was the type of concept that would slowly drive one to the depths of madness in the midst of a fight.
'But you've met the wrong opponent this time, buddy.' Damien thought with a grin.
He maintained his outward wince as he traced the periphery of the arena with his movements and warily kept his eyes on Bai Yumo, whose expression was becoming more condescending with the passing of time.
'He might've achieved large success with this move, but he definitely doesn't expect it to kill me. If so…'
Damien turned a piece of his attention inward as he teleported back into battle and pressed Bai Yumo in melee combat.
Mirage went in all directions almost impossibly. It would leave Damien's hand and swivel around from behind Bai Yumo to attack his flank while Damien sent shots with Freya and Hel, and the longer it remained in battle, the stronger its spiritual intelligence and capabilities became.
It was a mystical thing to see, almost like a sign of natural weapon evolution, but these signs were so preliminary that noting them was useless.
Instead, Damien used the distraction Mirage provided to scan his internal situation and find the poison he allowed into his body.
'Mm, it should be this.'
It truly was a fearsome energy. Even though Damien was fully controlling its movements and the effect it had on his body, the area it was allowed to contaminate was thoroughly poisoned.
Even Damien wouldn't be safe from a force like this if he didn't have the Void Physique to clear it from his body.
'But you probably aren't willing to do work, so I'll do it myself.'
The Void Physique was a trusty companion, but whenever Damien faced a battle that was important for his future, it always took a back seat and forced him to do things on his own.
It was a method of testing and also a method of training to make Damien worthy of its full power, and at this point, he didn't get angry at it anymore.
Because he was slowly acquiring the ability to control its facilities on his own.
The same mysterious power of the Void that swam through his body whenever the Void Physique interfered returned, but this time, its source was Damien himself.
That mana encircled the contaminated area and trapped Bai Yumo's strange mana, devouring tiny pieces of it in curiosity.
If Damien was correct, this energy was Bai Yumo's true trump card, and it wasn't so simple as an ordinary poison.
So before Bai Yumo realized that he'd corralled that energy, he needed to devour it and comprehend its inner workings!
Meanwhile…
